


Flying Lessons

by TwentyoneTwelve



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Jedi Master Jade Skywalker, Jedi Training, Mara Jade teaches, New Jedi Order, This will always be cannon to me, writing challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-01
Updated: 2016-08-01
Packaged: 2018-07-28 16:28:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7648252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TwentyoneTwelve/pseuds/TwentyoneTwelve
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A first ship was more than a first love. It was wings that wouldn’t melt when you flew near the sun, a second heart that married your own to its thrumming beat. But above all, and she wondered if Han Solo had forgotten this, that he had given a ship to his sixteen-year-old daughter, it was true freedom.</p><p>Jedi Master Mara Jade Skywalker teaches an important lesson to her apprentice. It's not one you can learn via lightsabre drills.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Flying Lessons

Even though they baked under the bright, distant sun and the subtler radiation of Yavin, the gas giant that filled a significant portion of the sky and gave the jungle clothed moon its name, the stones of the Great Temple of Yavin IV held no heat to emanate against the predawn chill. Mara Jade Skywalker shivered as she crossed the mist-filled vacancy of the landing pad. Damp wisps of the stuff tickled the back of her neck, left unusually exposed since her dark red hair was pulled into a braid.

She kept all her senses – the natural, the trained Jedi skill of life-sensing, and the honed-to-knife-edge sensitivity of danger that was her force-given birth right – wide open. It wouldn’t do anything for her Jedi Master mystique if she walked into the wing of a transport in the fog. Or step on any of the native reptiles lying on the duracrete in a cold-induced torpor, the unfocused glow of their living energy dimed as they waited for the sun.

Her apprentice, even if the girl was sound asleep, pulsed brightly in the Force, a beacon that drew Mara across the pad. She focused on the girl and the dreams that darted through her niece’s skull. Mental shielding relaxed in sleep, Jaina had to be ‘hearing’ the echoes of the Rebel pilots who had flown from the temple so many years ago. Her dreams were full of the calls of ground crews as X-Wings were readied, of pilots completing checklists, of engines igniting, the siren-song of fighter craft tearing themselves free of atmosphere and gravity.

Mara knew that bone-rattling melody. Knew it and loved it with the passion of one who had flown alone between the stars, independent and observant. She followed the thread of her apprentice’s dreams to a small fighter that lay in the shadow of a larger disc shaped freighter. The teenager had clearly been loath to leave. She half leaned and half sat curled in a ball in the pilot’s chair, the canopy still thrown back. Her dark hair was wet with dew, her visible cheek smeared with the grease that filled her nailbeds. The fighter was ringed by portable work lights, their batteries worn down so that they barely warmed the filaments. It brought back memories.

Mara had done the same thing several nights in a row when she first acquired the _Jade’s Fire_. A first ship was more than a first love. It was wings that wouldn’t melt when you flew near the sun, a second heart that married your own to its thrumming beat. But above all, and she wondered if Han Solo had forgotten this, that he had given a ship to his sixteen-year-old daughter, it was true _freedom_.

Mara kept her presence wide open as she climbed up the Z-95 Headhunter’s side. The Solo kids had encountered a truly astonishing number of kidnapping attempts, and more than a few successes in their relatively short lives. Being woken abruptly, in an unfamiliar environment would probably trigger her apprentice’s self-defensive reflexes. At times that would be an appropriate training exercise, but today it would leave her in the wrong mental space for the lesson Mara had in mind.

And didn’t that just lead her down an interesting rabbit hole of memories. For all that the Emperor’s training had avoided the kind of psychological scars that tended to set one down a dark and generally irreversible spiral – and she still occasionally found herself lying awake at night wondering why, out of all his Hand’s, he had never quite pushed her over that threshold into being a true Dark Side adept – it had been designed to take her to just past breaking point and hold her there until she came up with her own way to get out of the situation. Sitting her in a classroom to learn the finer arts of teasing information out of software, or a tonal-based language while she was still shivering from the adrenaline flood of a socloseshedidn’tknowhowshe’dsurvived death experience had been a particular favourite of his tutors.

When she’d interviewed for the position in Karrde’s business, she had managed to sum all that experience into the bland phrase “good in a high stress environment”. She’d been unable to resist a wry turn to her mouth when she’d said it. For years, she’d idly wondered if that ironic grimace, and the oh so obvious hidden truth behind it had been what actually attracted the man. Talon Karrde approached secrets the way a spicehead would approach a life-time’s VIP pass to the sampling rooms on Kessel. At least the time she’d spent with Karrde’s organisation had refined her teaching skills.

Mara reached into the cockpit, prodding her apprentice with the wrench she had grabbed on her way up the Headhunter’s single S foil.   
The girl muttered about annoying little brothers, reaching out with the Force to push the wrench away.  
“Oh, no, that’s not happening.” Mara crooned, stirring her apprentice again.

Jaina Solo, petite like her mother, with a double dose of the scruffy nerf-herder Solo DNA, reared up in the seat, scowling and blinking. Then she saw her Master, and scrambled to her feet on the pilot’s seat, almost overbalancing. The girl was an endearing mix of heavy formality – a result of the ceremony the previous day where she had passed from being a trainee to a legitimate apprentice, with a Master to impress, awkward embarrassment – the result of a body that had long since given up on gaining height, but was still inclined towards rapid shifts in dimension and mass, despite the daily physical training, and a cocky streak the diameter of Corellia – the result of an unfair amount of both Force talent and genetics towards fixing and flying any craft that moved.

Mara Jade Skywalker looked at her niece with an affection that Master Jade Skywalker would never show.

Still balanced half in the cockpit, her apprentice bowed. “Master? I didn’t remember that we were going to train today.”   
Mara let her grin chase the morning damp from her bones, and even a hint of it show on her face. “You’re an apprentice now. No more of those sleep-ins and late breakfasts.” She knew, and Jaina knew that she knew that the Jedi trainees had been up before dawn for meditation and weapons practice for at least the past year. She revelled in the girl’s look of apprehension. “How is the ship going?”

Jaina blinked, clearly not expected that. “Ah. Dad did all the major work before he gave it to me, and we’ve been double checking everything. It needs some flight hours to get it all working together, but… ”Her excitement and happiness flared in the Force. “It has a hyperdrive! And even enough space for a duffel.”   
“Weapons?” The girl hesitated, and Mara could feel her momentary worry in the Force. Sure, she knew that her aunt’s ship was armed, and that both she and Uncle Luke had flown in combat, but it really wasn’t something a good Jedi should be excited about. “Uh… yes. Four lasers and a proton torpedo set up. No torpedoes though… Dad…” She trailed off, clearly confused as to Mara’s meaning.  
Mara let the grin widen. “You wanted me to train you. This is your first lesson. Flying.”

Jaina looked even more confused. The Headhunter was a single seat craft. “Uh, Master, my Dad already taught me how to fly.”  
“We’re not talking mechanics.” Mara slid down the Headhunter’s curved fuselage to the ground. Jaina followed, landing lightly – she had obviously used the Force to slow her descent. “You have a week before you meet the rest of your family on Mon Cal for that holiday they seem to think you need. And you’ll pilot yourself there, leaving today.”

Her apprentice’s Force presence filled again with anticipation, a hundred different images of astrogation charts, fuel to weight ratios, the things she would pack in her flight back. She was practically dancing on the spot.  
“Go.” Mara motioned in the direction of the temple, finally appearing as the mists evaporated. “Don’t be missing any meals or classes today.”   
Jaina took off running.  
“Log your flight plan with Yavin Control and the Falcon.” Mara yelled after her.

*

Mara Jade Skywalker was waiting with the rest of the Solo/Skywalker clan long before Mon Cal flight control alerted them that Jaina’s fighter was on final approach. Han barely waited for the pad tech to signal that it was safe to approach before he was up on the side of his daughter’s ship, not waiting for the ladder, and hugging her even before the canopy was fully up.

The Headhunter looked much the same as it had on leaving Yavin IV, the same miss-match of coloured panels, the slight hump-back of the after-market hyperdrive housing. It had obviously handled differently on landing, the weight further forward, suggesting that a torpedo occupied the nose magazine.

Jaina freed herself from parental and sibling affection, and came to stand in front of her master. Her stance was more settled, Mara noted. Her apprentice had bruises on the corner of her jaw and around one wrist, and her nails were even more torn and stained than usual, but her Force presence was full of joy and pride. “I think I understand.” She said, quietly enough that the approaching family wouldn’t hear. “There’s so much more I want to know, but, I did it. By myself. And it wasn’t something that Jedi robes or my lightsabre did. It was thinking and talking. And…” She took a deep breath.

Mara rested her hands on the younger woman’s shoulders.  
“I want to learn how to fly.” Jaina told her.

**Author's Note:**

> This sweet and sunshiny short piece was written for the first tumblr Challenge I've ever been part of. Sadly moving house and a habit of procrastinating meant I wrote it in 3 hours before the deadline. 
> 
> A lot of this is cannon - I never knew that Jaina got given a Z-95 headhunter as a graduation present - that's a pretty super sweet sixteenth! And apparently flying is the first lesson Mara Jade taught her. (Thanks Wookiepedia!)
> 
> Always happy to hear your feedback.


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